July 4 fireworks fizzle in St. Bernard

The relocation of Interstate 75 may have ultimately cut the fuse on St. Bernard’s annual Independence Day fireworks display.

The I-75 relocation forced the village to relocate a service garage, and the new garage was built at the former Nu-Maid Margarine site, the site from which the fireworks have been launched in recent years. That means there’s no place in St. Bernard where fireworks can legally be detonated without major street closures, said village Service Director Phil Stegman.

“St. Bernard’s very landlocked,” Stegman said. “We’ve got a lot of parks, we’ve got a lot of cemeteries – we just don’t have a lot of open land like a lot of other communities.”

The village spent $20,000 to $25,000 annually on the display.

Rozzi Famous Fireworks, which runs the community’s fireworks show, must comply with national regulations that set forth the minimum distance from buildings commercial fireworks can be launched.

“We bend over backwards to make it happen, but sometimes the regulations will prevent us,” Rozzi Fireworks president Nancy Rozzi said. “It’s out of our control at some point.”

Rozzi Fireworks conducts Fourth of July fireworks shows in several Hamilton County communities, including Downtown Cincinnati, Hyde Park, Indian Hill, Evendale, Wyoming and Fairfield.

Vine Street and Railroad Avenue would need to be closed for up to an hour to allow for a fireworks display in St. Bernard, but that’s not really an option.

“With all of the safety equipment, the Metro and everything else, we can’t just shut down Vine Street for 30 or 45 minutes,” Stegman said.

The annual fireworks have held nearly every year for as long as anyone in the village can remember, said St. Bernard resident and historian Marge Niesen. She checked the history books and asked around the village, and no one could tell her when they started.

“It was always a tradition,” Niesen said.

Motorists would often stop their cars on the shoulders of I-75 to watch the show, Niesen said.